In Turkey, I bought a cheap top a cotton crinkle with raglan sleeves and rather bulky lace at the front neckline. Typical tourist top. I traced off a pattern for it and used a cotton medallion lace in navy to go with some fabric I bought in Belgrade.

I can’t resist a paisley and although this one is very bright, worn with denim in the summer it will be fine. The fabric is very light lawn of silk and cotton I think. It is as soft as one of my mom’s old hankies. It is also very cool to wear.

I did narrow hems and I think I added some bias to the seam where I joined it to the lace.

This old post was written three years ago and never published. I did make up the Fabric below a year later, a long maxi v necked summer dress line with black batiste, lining, it really doesn’t get much wear. I haven’t found any photos of it. I finished a blouse with the second fabric and it will be in the next post.

The lace and buttons have not been used yet.

We have been away for 2 weeks on a river cruise in Eastern Europe.
We were on a tour bus in Belgrade and I saw a fabric store pass by my window. It was only about 15 feet wide, so really for fabric I have the eyes of a hawk. I had asked the concierge on the boat for a bead or button store, so when we went to spend free time on shore, the two places turned out to be close to each other. On the way to the fabric store, there were a couple of small windows, really just a couple of pillars one with pleated skirt fabric and one with some lace and buttons.

It was a bit of a rough looking corridor and staircase and the mailboxes alone were worth a picture. It got darker in the hallway upstairs but at the end I caught a glimpse of trims. Wow a little tiny shop with a couple of sales clerks with minimal English but I bought lace and buttons and I was happy. The lace and buttons hasn’t been used yet.

Next we found the fabric store,(it is the 3rd shop) 2 sales clerks and a manager, all speaking excellent English and who were excited pulling out bolts of fabric for my approval. I came away with 2 wonderful summer weight fabrics from Italy. I was quite taken with tablecloth fabric, coating, sweater knits etc, but I had very little room left in my suitcase.

In Rousse, Bulgaria, I found a Patrones magazine. Elsewhere I found a lot of Burda magazines but I can get them a couple of blocks from the house.

We have had good weather to travel, sunny, and warm. We arrived the first night in Salmon Arm, the most surprising thing the first day was the state of the forests. For a long distance on the Coqulhalla highway, it was apparent that the pine beetle had done a lot of damage. So many of the trees are dead or dying, it was the worst that I have ever seen. It makes me feel sad, the only way to get rid of the pine beetle is cold temperatures of -40 for a few weeks. It hasnn’t been that cold in the interior for a number of years.

The second day we drove on to Banff and arrived at suppertime and stayed with relatives in town. I was able to cut out my mom’s blouse. In the morning we had stopped at Three Valley Gap, and looked at the museum. The mountains are spectactular and it was a great drive. It doesn’t matter where we go there is road construction everywhere. The roads will be great eventually and another section will be torn up.

The next day we met up with family for lunch at a pub. The soup was delicious cream of chicken with corn and peas. We travelled on to Hanna for the night. I was able to sew on my mom’s blouse.

Sunday, we drove on to Saskatoon to stay with other relatives, we will be here for a few days and we haven’t made many plans yet. On Monday, we visited with various cousins.

I don’t have any pictures yet, the camera is still on the boat. The weather was variable wind, rain, sun, cold, hot. We stayed an extra night in Naniamo because of the wind and rain, walked around the town with 2 jackets on each. When we went through Dodd’s narrows, the current is up around 9 knots, so everyone waits for slack water and it was really busy with about 25 vessels plus a tug with a barge, every one was calling up on the radio with security messages.

We went to the Beneteau rendevous, over 60 boats. One man had just circumnavigated the globe, in a 30 foot boat. There was lots of fun and games and also some fund raising. Around $500 for children’s hospital and $600 for the Disabled sailors association. I attended a cooking demonstration with raised money for the disabled sailors, about 18 receipes to taste and I learned lots about good utensils and products to take on a boat. I didn’t go to the cooking lesson on the last rendevous but will certainly like to attend another one someday.

We spent 2 days in Ganges, on Salt Spring Island and I splurged at the Stitches Quilt store.The new location is wonderful. The last night was Canada day, so we had a great spot on the dock to watch the fireworks, listen to the anthem and the song which was made popular during Expo ’86, Our Home Our Canada. It was a great evening with everyone cheering and the boats with all the horns honking.

After all the years of sailing, I saw my first orca in the wild. It’s so joyous to seem them.

Here we are tied up to a mooring bouy.

The last day coming home, was long, bumpy with good sized troughs and I could only cope with that with my eyes shut. My head was just throbbing and needed ice on return home. Hubby went out the next day for another rendevous. I was glad for some downtime and stayed home.

I was in Toronto for a few days, nice to get away from home for a few days, visiting family.The weather turned fairly warm on Saturday with a warm wind. We went for lunch at the Autogrill and took part in the Winterlicious program, I had some excellent pizza with very thin crust. Then it was onto the subway and the streetcar, nearly the full length of Queen Street.The first stop was the Purple Purl, a neat yarn shop and then a long ride again over to Dufferin and to the Workroom. I took a little side trip to look at contemporary jewelry at Made You Look and we also had a look in the fabric store, I can’ t remember the name but some excellent things in there as well. One final stop on the way home to look in Fluevog’s. I didn’t buy anything but that was OK.I spent some time knitting and my new socks (Arequipa) are coming along quite nicely.We had two hours of turbulence on the plane, couldn’t knit during that, just kept my eyes shut and tried to ignore the whole thing. The next plane was late due to a mechanical problem. It was a long day and just glad to get in the door at 1am.

We drove up to Williams Lake this weekend, a seven and a half hour trip. A much better drive coming home as the road was dry but there was still a fair bit of fog. Fog, rain, slush on the road going up made us glad we had 4wheel drive. This was a fair size group of Mountain sheep at the side of the road, about 16 animals, I didn’t count.

I have never been in the Cariboo when there was snow, just a skiff on the ground but living on the coast I have never seen sage brush, and golden grasses in the snow before. I was quite taken with a different colour scheme.

While my husband was out lecturing, I stayed in the hotel and sewed a jacket. It was just a track jacket made of sweatpant fabric but there was a few things new to me and I still have the zipper to put in.

I met up with my cousin for a chat and on the way home stopped for a bite to eat at Bridal Falls and a nursing buddy was in the next booth. It was great to catch up with her as well.

Nice is known for the colourful building with iron balconies, the beach and promenade walk and the big yachts. The Four Point Hotel we discovered on one of our walks and I was intrigued to find this statue of a woman, in the side of the building.

The yacht basin is beautiful with colourful buildings surrounding the area and all types of boats in the harbour. The marina is in between the hills in the last picture.Both days that we were there last April, were windy but very pleasant.